


the red of the sunrise of the rest of our lives

by Serie11



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: 5+1 Things, All Routes (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Ambiguous Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, Healing, M/M, Magic, Post-Canon, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Canon, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-22 20:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23000158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: Linhardt's hands are always steady - Caspar wishes he were that sure about anything.Five times Linhardt heals Caspar, and one time Caspar heals Linhardt.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 5
Kudos: 95
Collections: Writing Rainbow Red





	the red of the sunrise of the rest of our lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EvilMuffins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/gifts).



1

He’s playing knights with his brother when it happens – an injury as bad as he’s seen any of the squires bring home, and even some of the experienced jousters. A long scratch up his arm, slowly dripping blood.

Caspar sniffles, determined not to cry in front of his brother. After all, he’s nearly nine now, it shouldn’t matter that he’s dripping blood all over his clothes. He’s _tough_ and _strong._

Still, he runs. His weapon is still in his hand, and he can’t quite make himself let go of it. It’s hard to find sticks that are straight enough to pretend to be swords, and he doesn’t want to drop this one, not for something as silly as a bit of blood. None of the squires ever drop their swords!

“Caspar!”

Caspar curls tighter into a ball, his stick still clenched in his fist. Someone comes and stands over him, and then sits down next to him, plucking the grass up and sprinkling it on his head.

“Stop it, Lin,” Caspar mumbles.

“Why? You’re not entertaining me otherwise. Isn’t that why you’re supposed to be here?”

Their fathers are in another meeting, again, and Lin’s father had told Caspar this morning that he should keep Lin out of everyone’s way. Even though there’s nothing wrong with Lin’s questions, some of the knights and older staff get annoyed with him for some reason that Caspar can’t understand. Every question that Lin asks is like a new sight to see, something to wonder at and think about. Caspar can’t think of all the possibilities by himself, but he think that Lin might be able to.

“We were playing knights,” Caspar tells him. “And you went away because you were bored. Which is dumb, because playing knights is the best.”

Lin yawns. “Maybe for you. I don’t see why you’re all so invested in hitting each other with sticks.” He plucks Caspar’s stick-sword out of his hand, and waves it about as if it’s a stave.

“Lin,” Caspar whines, but he doesn’t move to snatch it back and Lin lets the stick droop, clearly more interested in getting a rise out of Caspar than playing with it.

“What’s wrong?” Lin asks. “Why are you out here? It normally takes something big to drag you away from that game.”

Caspar sniffles again and Lin’s face creases, gaining as many wrinkles as Caspar’s balled up napkins.

“You’re bleeding,” Lin points out calmly. Caspar wishes he could feel that calm – instead he feels all twisty inside, like when he ate berries out in the woods one time and it gave him the worst stomach ache ever. “Show me your arm.”

Caspar hesitates, but Lin waits, steady. There’s no one else around, and so Caspar slowly extends himself, trying to think of what the knights would say when they came home with new scars that looked just like this, but the only thing he can think about is how Lin tilts his head ever so slightly, a lock of hair falling over his ear as he does.

“It’s not a neat cut,” Lin says, pursing his mouth. “Look at all the dirt in it! Did you go rolling around after you got this?”

“Maybe,” Caspar admits. Lin tuts at him, but then he holds his hand out, and Caspar’s eyes widen as a soft glow begins to emit from them. His arm feels all tingly, and warm, and then like there’s ants crawling all over him, and Caspar yelps but the light has already disappeared. His arm is still dirty and covered in blood, but the big scratch is gone.

“There,” Lin says, looking very satisfied with himself. “That’s better.”

“Woah!” Caspar shouts, loud enough that his governess would have scolded him for it if she’d been within earshot. “That’s awesome! How long have you been able to do that?”

Lin hums. “I started learning last summer, and it’s really interesting, so I’ve taken it up. I don’t understand how you couldn’t do it, really, it’s simple.”

“This is the BEST day ever!” Caspar cheers. “Now I can do whatever I want, and you can heal me after! Well, if things go wrong. Which they won’t! But if they do, then you’re there!”

Lin’s face is slowly becoming more concerned as he realises what he’s unleashed on the world. Caspar picks up his stick and starts brandishing it, coming up with snappy remarks that he’ll shout while on the battlefield.

“Caspar!” Lin finally manages to shout loud enough to get his attention.

“What?” Caspar asks, resting his sword on his shoulder. It’s a very cool move that he’s seen the knights do with real swords, and it’s something he wants to do one day too.

“Don’t forget that I’m only here for the week,” Lin says. “And after that I’m going home again. And I can’t heal much more than cuts.” He bows his head. “I’m really happy I could heal you, so don’t go messing anything up.”

“Well that’s easy,” Caspar says. “You just have to become the best healer ever. And I’ll become the best knight ever! We’ll be unstoppable together!”

Lin smiles, and when Caspar breaks his arm the next day, he even tries to heal it for him. Of course, they have to get other medics involved in the end, but Caspar’s words were not soon forgotten by either of them – Linhardt, who wished to never stand by and do nothing when his best friend was injured, and Caspar, who was determined to make a mark on history beside Linhardt.

Of course, in the end, life was not quite that simple.

2

“You’re reckless, and thoughtless,” Linhardt curses. “A fool, a liability, an idiot.”

“Mention it all,” Caspar groans. “Mention it all, I deserve it.”

“What if this had happened on a real battlefield? There wouldn’t have been people around to rush you here. You would have fallen down into some ditch and died.” Linhardt eases his hand down the shaft of the arrow, sending his magic deep into the shaft to take root. He can feel where things are going wrong, where the arrowhead is lodged inside.

“Poor Bernadetta,” Caspar rasps. “She’s already on permanent panic mode, she really didn’t need to shoot me by accident.”

“You should be worrying less about Bernadetta and more about yourself,” Linhardt says. “Sneaking up on her while she has a weapon in her hand! You shouldn’t have been doing that to anyone, because anyone would have been as likely to hit you.”

“I didn’t realise,” Caspar says, baring his teeth as Linhardt starts coaxing the arrow out. “ _Ah_ , shit! Come on, aren’t you supposed to be studying this? Isn’t a part of that to, you know, heal me?”

“I am,” Linhardt snaps. “Stop complaining. It’s your fault that you have an arrow in your ass.”

Caspar sighs despondently. “So do you think this is divine punishment or just sheer chance? I really do think Bernie is the key. Was the Goddess punishing me for startling her, or is she just so on edge that anyone walking by would –”

“Be quiet, you’re distracting me,” Linhardt tells him. Caspar shifts so he’s looking at Linhardt instead of at the wall, somehow managing to not move his lower body while he’s at it. Linhardt finally pulls the arrow out of Caspar’s ass, and really wishes that anyone besides him was available to do this. Really. Anyone.

Still, he closes the wound as quickly as he’s able. Miraculously, Caspar is quiet. He must have said something to convince him to stop talking.

“Lin,” Caspar says, and Linhardt curses himself for having that thought and prompting Caspar to break the silence. And he’s using that silly childhood name that he only says when they’re alone together, and it shouldn’t warm his chest as much as it does. “Thanks.”

Linhardt stubbornly bandages him, and then moves to the sink as quickly as he can. His hands are only shaking somewhat – without the adrenaline of a battle to distract him, the sight of the blood is hard to ignore.

“Don’t stretch it or do any running,” Linhardt says dully. “Don’t –”

Caspar’s arms wrap around him and Linhardt freezes.

“I know you have trouble with it when you’re not in the thick of things,” Caspar says, so quiet that the words only have enough strength to make it to Linhardt’s ears. “You could have made me lie there to wait for someone else, but you didn’t. So thank you.”

Linhardt closes his eyes but doesn’t say anything – he’s wasted enough breath over the events of three years ago, when bandits had butchered his mother in front of him but had left him alone. He’d been fine with the sight of blood before then, something that had helped when he was healing people, but which had been of no aid to him when he had been pouring his magic into a corpse.

The last few months of dealing with real battles and real injuries have helped him get used to it again. Slightly.

“Just don’t do it again,” Linhardt sighs, and Caspar leans on him as they leave the infirmary, already speculating on what they’re going to have for dinner.

3

Fort Merceus looks different from the other side.

Caspar charges up the steps, his axe solid and heavy in his grip, a satisfying weight to swing. He doesn’t look too closely at the faces of the people they come across – he makes sure not to look at anyone, actually. Claude has initiated the surprise attack from the other side of the fortress, and it doesn’t matter that Caspar remembers what it was like to run these halls as a child. Well, it does matter; he’s been tasked with leading a small strike force through the underbelly of the fort.

The troops that he’s leading come from the Kingdom, and he hardly knows any of them, likely for the better. Caspar has learnt how to surround himself with the cold of command in the last few years, and he hoards the lives of his troops like a miser hoards his coins, but if he must spend their lives then he does.

They cut through the kitchens and the small training yard awakens a deeper ache inside him than he knows how to name. He’d abandoned all those people – Ferdinand and Bernadetta and Petra had joined the side of the Alliance, but it isn’t the same. It still hurts to trample through this bastion of his childhood, a place he was always told was impenetrable. It isn’t: they are cutting through it now, not without losses, but it is yielding. That’s its own type of hurt, really. Another piece of his innocence gone, even though he had been so sure that he had lost it all long ago.

They come up on the south west ramparts and after they clear the soldiers there Caspar takes a moment to regroup and survey the battlefield, to try and determine where they’re needed the most. Claude’s white wyvern is dipping up and down on the northern edge, and he can see the flash of the professor’s red blade near the centre.

In the west, there’s a familiar crown of green.

Caspar is dizzy, all of a sudden, swaying like someone has come and gutted him. He almost looks around for an assassin but that would be a lie. There is no reason for him to be feeling like this, except for the person he has seen. Almost, he wishes Linhardt would have worn something different, something that disguised him instead of something that marked him out as being in command.

The others are going to be there soon. Caspar leans further forward over the rampart, craning to get a better look. He hasn’t seen Linhardt in so long – maybe he’s wrong. Maybe it’s not him.

The figure raises his hand, and the edge of a healing spell washes over him. The tiny seed of doubt, of hope, inside him dies. There can be no mistaking now.

A bolting spell almost takes his face off, and he’s yanked back by his battalion. They’re all yelling something, but Caspar can’t hear them anymore. It’s like the dreams he has of the battlefield, only worse. He can’t hear anything, oddly, but his mouth is moving, giving orders. He can’t feel anything but the hot sun striking his armour and sizzling in the corner of his eye, which is made ever stranger when blood sprays across his face.

Then he’s standing in front of Linhardt. His battalion are behind him, and behind Linhardt there is an array of healers – it’s obvious that none of them have much combat experience, especially compared to Caspar’s veterans. If they can get past Linhardt, it will be easy to kill them all. Tactically sound, Caspar absently thinks to himself. He still can’t hear anything. Linhardt’s mouth is moving.

“What?” Caspar asks, and Linhardt’s mouth goes hard and flat. In all their years together, Caspar never remembers him making that expression before.

“I said,” Linhardt says slowly. “That I never expected to see you here. I thought you fled Fódlan, not that you defected.”

“I’m here,” Caspar says, because Linhardt wears his long hair differently now. He can’t think of anything else to say. “I’m here.”

“You know, I don’t think we’ve ever actually fought each other before,” Linhardt says, and Caspar thinks of quiet nights in libraries, of Linhardt’s steady hands as he healed another one of Caspar’s stupid injuries, of long days playing together as children.

“Surrender,” Caspar says, and it sounds like he’s the one offering instead of demanding it. “Surrender, Linhardt.”

“Maybe,” Linhardt says softly. “Maybe, if you’d called me Lin.”

They’re too far away, and Caspar still feels like he’s sun-struck, all coherent thoughts fled. Linhardt’s spell catches him clean across the chest, and there doesn’t have to be another attack for him to know that the first one was more than enough. He goes down, and his skull cracks against the stone, and everything goes dark.

“No, no no no,” he hears, but it’s faded. Listening seems so much of a chore. He never realised that listening took so much effort before. His eyes are shut, he thinks – he can’t see anything.

A hand comes to rest on his brow, and the coolness of a healing spell washes over him. Strange. Aren’t healing spells supposed to be warm?

He might be dying.

“Caspar,” someone pleads, and a dreg of stubbornness rises within him. He wants to see the person who did this to him. He wants to see the person who’s now trying to heal him. He tries to open his eyes, but that’s far too much effort, so he compromises. One eye, he tells himself. Just open one eye. Come on, you can do something as simple as that.

He gathers his remaining energy. It feels like he’s lifting a giant rock rather than just his eyelid, but he manages, trembling the whole time. Linhardt is blurry, and Caspar vaguely thinks that it’s regrettable. If this is the last thing he’ll ever see, it’s a shame that it’s blurry.

“Caspar,” Linhardt says again, but Caspar cannot answer. It took all his strength just to open an eye, and even that is fading. Suddenly, it just seems too hard. Suddenly, his eyes are closed again, and the only thing he can feel is Linhardt’s fingers on his neck, pressed against his fading pulse.

“Stay with me,” Linhardt begs. “Surely you can be stubborn one last time. Stay with me, Caspar.”

Linhardt sounds like he’s talking from a long distance – but the fingers on his throat are still there, and so is the hand gripping his, their fingers pressed together.

Caspar hangs on.

4

Linhardt lays his hand against Annette’s arm, and she smiles up at him, her energy visibly returning.

“Thanks!” she chirps, and turns to throw a spell in an enemy’s face. Linhardt slowly moves away from her, drifting among those that need his aid. The chaos of battle is near, and they’re pushing forward, but he stays in the back line, casting the more exhausting physic when he can’t reach a patient.

It’s loud, but he’s long since been able to tune that out. It’s far more important to listen for cries of help and cries for a healer than to listen to the screams of those who are dying. Unproductive, too. If Linhardt thinks about what’s happening just a stone’s throw away, he’ll be sick, and that won’t help anyone.

Dimitri’s primal yell cuts through the sound, stalling everyone in their tracks for half a second. Their leader demands attention, and even Linhardt isn’t immune to that.

Caspar’s wyvern rises in front of Linhardt’s battalion, but there’s no rider on it.

Linhardt shakes his head and starts striding in that direction as quickly as he can, picking his way across the battlefield remnants and pointedly ignoring Sylvain. Mercedes is closer than Linhardt is anyway, and she’s far more used to dealing with Sylvain’s antics.

He finds Caspar leaning against a tree which has seen better days. It’s been uprooted recently, and the strong smell of pine is in the air from where its branches have been trampled. The rest of Caspar’s battalion is in the air, swooping and defending their position as best as they can from anyone who tries to draw near, keeping Caspar out of danger as much as possible.

“You’ve trained that wyvern terribly,” Linhardt says to him as soon as he sees that his eyes are open. “Aren’t wyverns supposed to stay by their riders when their riders get thrown off?”

“Supposed to being the operative word,” Caspar grumbles. “I think my leg is broken – it hurts.”

Linhardt peers at it. “It’s not broken,” he says. “You just have a spear in it.”

“Oh good, that’s a lot better,” Caspar mumbles.

“Hush,” Linhardt murmurs. The haft of the spear is broken, probably in the fall, but that means that the remaining part is even more troublesome. It’s gone completely through his leg, including his armour, and Linhardt reaches the conclusion that it must have lodged in Caspar, then when he had fallen from his wyvern, the force of striking the ground had driven it through.

Linhardt cuts the shaft as close to Caspar’s leg as he can, and then the other healers that he’s directly in charge of help to get Caspar onto a flat and clean piece of ground. Linhardt cuts the head of the spear off as well, so the only part they have to deal with is the part that’s still in Caspar.

“You’re too good to me, Lin,” Caspar mumbles, and Linhardt passes a hand over his forehead, murmuring a quiet spell that would put him into a deep sleep. He doesn’t need to be awake for this part of the process, and it would be remiss of Linhardt as a healer to keep him awake. No matter how much he wants to throttle him for getting into this situation in the first place.

The magic builds in him, and Linhardt lets it flow.

5

It’s dark and he’s drunk and carrying three more bottles of wine when he runs into a wall and drops two of them.

He makes a sound that someone sober might call ‘alarmed or pissed off, or both’ and promptly steps in glass. Those few rounds of betting his clothes in a few rounds of cards are not paying off tonight.

He’s in the middle of swearing up a storm when someone calls out his name from the other side of the corridor. And that makes him swear some more, though quietly this time. Linhardt doesn’t like it when he’s drunk, and there’s no denying that he currently is.

“Caspar,” Linhardt says again, tense. “Can you even hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Caspar says, trying to keep his voice as clear as possible.

“What are you doing in here? Did you bathe in some wine? Is that why I can smell so much of it?” Linhardt creates a small fireball in the palm of his hand and surveys the mess on the ground, and how Caspar is balancing on one foot while clutching the other and bleeding. He sighs. “Stay there.”

Caspar leans against the wall as Linhardt disappears and tries to squint to see if he can pluck the biggest pieces out of his foot. Linhardt’s spell had ruined what night vision he had, and everything is already blurry, so after a few minutes he gives up. Luckily, Linhardt isn’t that long, and he has a broom with him.

Caspar watches silently as he sweeps away most of the mess in front of him, and then offers his hand so Caspar can limp out without having to put his foot against the ground. The wall is right there, but Caspar can’t resist taking Linhardt’s hand. Another reason he didn’t want to see him – the alcohol makes him think things, things that he shouldn’t. Things that he’d tell Linhardt about, if he had more courage.

“Are you still holding a bottle?” Linhardt asks incredulously. Caspar nearly drops it on reflex before remembering how he’d gotten into this situation in the first place.

“Sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else will make Linhardt happy. By Linhardt’s expression, it didn’t work.

“Be quiet,” Linhardt says, with none of the fondness that is normally in his tone. “Come into the light.”

The moon is full, and Caspar falls onto the ground. Linhardt crouches, and Caspar feels the familiar warmth of healing magic spark on his skin. His head is spinning slowly, or maybe the world is. He thinks that he’ll just lie here and feel Linhardt’s hands on his skin.

“Done,” Linhardt says, and Caspar startles awake. The moon has moved slightly, so he must have been out of it for a while.

“Ah,” he says, and tries to sit up. His head is still spinning slightly. Linhardt helps him up, and then Caspar throws an arm over his shoulders, to support himself and to get closer. Linhardt’s hair is out, loose and around his shoulders like it never normally is. Belatedly, Caspar realises that he’s in his night clothes, too. He’d probably just been going back to bed, and instead now he’s helping Caspar back to the courtyard where the Black Eagle Strike Force have been partying since the sun went down.

“You’re impossible,” Linhardt grumbles. “I can’t believe that you cut your feet on a wine bottle. I don’t even want to know why you were walking around with no shoes on.”

“I lost my shoes in a bet,” Caspar informs him.

Linhardt sighs. They come into view of the courtyard, a few of the others still clustered around a table.

“How many times have you saved my life?” Caspar wonders out loud. “For some reason it’s always you that ends up healing me. Strange, but you know, I like it. You’re always there for me…”

Linhardt gives him a withering glare. “I’ve saved you far too many times to try to keep track of them all.”

“Aw, you’re so cute when you pretend to be angry.” Caspar pats his arm. “Thank you.”

Linhardt turns away, and Caspar tries not to lean too obviously after him, tries not to look too disappointed. Linhardt’s never been one for drinking, but that doesn’t mean that Caspar stops wanting him here. Doesn’t mean that Caspar stops wanting to touch him, to bring him in close and smell his hair and feel his heat.

“Just don’t be stupid enough that you’re not ready to go in the morning,” Linhardt says over his shoulder, and Caspar’s shoulders droop. Dorothea calls him back, and timid Bernie is having a burping contest with Petra, but Caspar just looks at Linhardt’s retreating back and thinks: about the battle they might all die in tomorrow, about the way that Linhardt’s hands felt against his skin.

He waves to the others, and leaves them to it. He has other things to do, on this moonlit night that may be his last.

+1

It’s a strange party – Byleth has finally officially been given the title of Archbishop, and everyone has come to celebrate. Or to say goodbye, maybe. Linhardt doesn’t know. He’s been saying that a lot over the last few months, ever since the war ended. Healing is easy, but when there isn’t people hacking each other’s limbs off every other day, less healers are needed. Theoretically, he finds that to be a good thing. Personally, it’s annoying. He likes using his magic. Studying crests is his passion, but he’s come to think that maybe helping people is his cause.

“Heya Linhardt,” Caspar says from behind him, and Linhardt tolerates the arm that is thrown around his shoulders. From anyone else he wouldn’t even have to – they all mind their space. Caspar doesn’t seem to realise that ‘personal space’ is a concept that exists.

“Caspar,” Linhardt says. “It seems that the war is truly over now.” He watches as Byleth greets a few of the others, the Archbishop’s crown oddly gleaming in the afternoon light.

“It’s been over for a while,” Caspar points out. “Or are you only just realising?”

“The infirmary here at the monastery is officially empty,” Linhardt notes. “We discharged the last person today. Everyone who doesn’t need to be here has gone home. Well, except for us.”

Ingrid and Felix are drinking tea with Petra and Lysithea at the feasting tables, and Raphael and Leonie are turning a jig in the centre space which is reserved for mingling. He feels rather bittersweet about it all. New life, flourishing in the steps of those who have come before.

“Except for us,” Caspar echoes oddly. “Hey, Lin. What are you gonna do after you leave here?”

Linhardt’s been wondering if he even will leave here. Surely, if they’re starting up the Officer’s Academy again, they’ll need teachers. Or maybe not even that – Byleth looks on him favourably enough that he’s sure that he would be allowed to simply live here, and further his own studies. There’s something missing in that picture though. It scratches at him like an annoyed cat. He lets out a breath.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He doesn’t know if he would actually have said that to anyone who isn’t Caspar.

“Hmm,” Caspar says. “Well, I think I know. We’ve been all over Fódlan in the last few years, right? Seeing all the sights, even if we made the blood flow over them a few hours later. I want… to just go. Just to see them, without the fighting.” He bows his head slightly. “I know that Leonie is staying to become Byleth’s personal retainer and bodyguard, and that most of the nobles are going back to their estates but… I don’t want that. Or maybe I do, but not now.” He nods. “If you haven’t decided yet – do you want to come with me?”

Linhardt stares at him. “Go with you?”

“Yeah!” Caspar says enthusiastically. “We can be a tag team duo, roaming the lands, helping those in need, fending for ourselves. It’ll be great!” He’s posing, but there’s a gingerness to his actions, like he isn’t quite sure how Linhardt will react. Like his response really does matter to him.

“It sounds like you want to go on campaign again, but without the institutional support that we get from everyone else,” Linhardt points out wryly. “Where are we going to get our food? Where will be sleep?”

Caspar rolls his eyes. “Oh we can sort all that out later. We’ll have coin, and I doubt that anyone could take it from us! You have your horse, and I’m good to run on foot.”

“Daffodil is a medically trained war horse,” Linhardt says, lifting his eyebrows.

“And what else is she going to do?” Caspar asks. He points at everyone, eating, drinking, dancing, enjoying themselves. There’s no one in armour. Just people, standing under the bright sun. “It’s like you said – the war is over. There’s no more use for a medically trained war horse. Just like there’s no more use for us.”

“Is that why you want to go?” Linhardt pokes, trying to figure out what he’s trying to get at, what he really wants to achieve by doing this. “You don’t think you’re needed?”

“No!” Caspar denies. “I know that there’s totally stuff that I could do. But they don’t really need _me._ So I don’t need to be here.” He looks very pleased with himself for deciding that.

Linhardt hesitates. Do they need him here? There are plenty of other healers – he’s trained more than a dozen himself. He stands out for his crest research, but it’s not like anything could stop him from doing that.

“Lin,” Caspar says, and it’s quiet and pointed and Linhardt looks at him, really looks at him. There’s a new scar cutting through his eyebrow, and he has more freckles on his face than Linhardt remembers from their youth, and there’s a hardness to his eyes that all of them have, that the war has beat into them. “Will you come with me? I want you to come with me. I want it to just be the two of us. Just for a while.”

Something inside him thaws, something that has been freezing inside him since the first time he killed someone, all those years ago. Something that has only been made worse by the war. Linhardt nods, and he has barely finished the motion before Caspar has his arms around him and has picked him up. Linhardt squawks, but it’s a show. He might be just as excited as Caspar is. He needs to get away from the war, from the memories, from the blood that haunts his dreams as much as they haunt Caspar. Caspar’s hand finds the back of his neck and Linhardt leans into it. If anyone can take his weight, it’s Caspar.

“I can’t wait,” Linhardt hears himself say, and Caspar laughs.


End file.
